ALAO Support Staff Interest Group
Program Planning Committee Meeting Minutes
Friday, August 2, 2002
The Ohio State University at Marion

Present: Martha Kluth – Univ. Of Akron; Joy Ramos – Univ. of Akron; Douglas Morrison – Ohio State Univ.-ATI; Rebecca Griffith – Southern State Comm. College; Mary Ayres – Southern State Comm. College; Brian Hickam – Ohio State Univ. – Mansfield; Amanda Bowers – Ohio Valley Area Libraries; Judy Orahood – Ohio Wesleyan University; John Burke – UC-Raymond Walters College.

Introductions and Announcements:
No additional announcements beyond pleasant introductions and a thank you to Pat Wood of OSU-Marion for arranging the meeting room and providing lunch and refreshments.

Spring Workshop

Potential speakers were reviewed:

1. Diane Kovacs is willing to do training sessions or to be the keynote speaker (her rates were reasonable for Tech Connections).
2. Mary did not contact Gene Kinnaly yet.
3. John checked with Larry Oberg and he is willing to speak (but could not attend three sessions spread over two weeks).
4. Kelly did not contact Rick Rubin as yet.
5. Doug checked with Mary Niederlander (she could provide a breakout session, but could not be main speaker - probably not cost effective with her travel).
6. Amanda suggested Patrick Donadio (who is speaking at GCLC Support Staff session in September). He was also recommended by Melissa Latanzzi. Amanda will check with Patrick about keynoting.

Doug suggested we come up with an overall, umbrella topic to suggest to speakers. Amanda asked what our desired effect is. Joy suggested talking about changing roles for support staff (as Charlie Fox was going to cover for us this year). Judy suggested offering sessions on getting published or making presentations. The group decided to focus on changing roles of support staff members and their increasing importance in libraries.

Doug suggested having a keynote on changing roles in the morning and then sessions on skills support staff need to do these new jobs in the afternoon. Various speaker and topic recommendations were made:

1. Amanda recommended Carol Bradsher for a cataloging session.
2. Doug recommended Margaret Maurer for the same topic.
3. Judy offered managing people as a topic.
4. Brian suggested office politics or staff relations.
5. Doug suggested Gaynelle Predmore as a motivational speaker
6. Mary suggested a faculty member at Southern States who enjoys speaking on motivation in the workplace (she used the "Fish!" video in a presentation with Mary and Rebecca).
7. Amanda highly recommended Francine Knight (OVAL's October 9 speaker on humor in the workplace) – she's from Kansas City.

Doug reported that three regionals have shown interest in co-sponsoring the workshops: GCLC, CAMLS, and OVAL. Amanda mentioned that there is a regional meeting on August 19 and that she will pass along our plans and see if others are interested. Regionals might be interested in contributing organizational help, facilities, etc. If we go this route, we will want to make sure our programs fit public, academic, school and special libraries.

Summary thoughts and action steps:

1. General theme: motivation in the library workplace (with changing roles, the personal responsibility for motivation, and also how to motivate others at work as subareas).
2. Afternoon sessions: skills to help changing roles - one session could be the keynote speaker elaborating on their morning remarks.
3. Brian suggested providing resources for motivation, etc., as an annotated handout.
4. Judy suggested having tables for breakout sessions during the afternoon.
5. We will ask for the regionals to contribute toward the keynote speaker or to fund afternoon sessions at their individual locations.
6. Doug will talk to Michael Lucas and Tom Sanville and check with Diane Kovacs again.
7. John will check back with Larry Oberg.
8. John will send out a message to the ALAO list looking for afternoon session speakers.
9. John will also check with Margaret Barron about being a keynote speaker.
10. Brian suggested that we may want to get involved with OLC regionals as well.
11. Doug noted that members of regionals would need to get a cut rate on attendance (same as ALAO members pay).

Contingency plan:
The group decided we should have a backup keynote speaker. Linda Dobb and John Burke were suggested. The backup speaker would need to prepare for the advertised topic (so that we avoid false advertising).

Next meeting: September 13 at Southern State's Southern Campus, 10-3.

(Afternoon Session Notes – thanks to Doug for providing these after John's departure)

(After Lunch)

ALAO-SSIG Spring 2003 Workshop (Some of this occurred in the morning part)
Meeting rejoined at 1:05 p.m….

Present: Martha Kluth – Univ. Of Akron; Joy Ramos – Univ. of Akron; Douglas Morrison – Ohio State Univ.-ATI; Rebecca Griffith – Southern State Comm. College; Mary Ayres – Southern State Comm. College; Brian Hickam – Ohio State Univ. – Mansfield; Amanda Bowers – Ohio Valley Area Libraries; Judy Orahood – Ohio Wesleyan University

Discussion of themes revolved around motivation of people and the changes in roles of the paraprofessional. After extensive discussion some connections in theme discussion begin to show – the motivation idea will encompass the roles of support staff and also the change in the roles they fulfill. The afternoon breakout sessions should focus on the skills that support staff may need to deal with change or increase their motivation.

Discussion further covered ideas of support for the Spring Workshop programs, as far as the regional consortia are concerned: can they contribute money (1/2 of costs)? How much will they aid in paying costs? Can they contribute facilities? Amanda B. can contribute some information in this area.

The determination regarding the make-up of the program seemed to shake out in this fashion: the morning session should focus motivating support staff – perhaps in their work roles. The afternoon session would be breakout sessions that dealt with skills training for support staff – possibly linked to skills useful in motivating self or others or in dealing with change.

Should the workshop format be keynote speaker or small group session style? What resources are available for these types of presentations? It was also determined that more thought should be given to contingency planning in case of difficulties with speaker or workshop programming. Possible contingency speakers could be Linda Dobb or John Burke in case of program disasters.

ALAO SSIG Webmastering – Brian will not be able to do it, but John B. would be willing to take up the task as needed.

Upgrades or changes to the SSIG web site, should include hot links to other resources on the web – not just those good for support staff, but also those good for use in the performance of specific job related skills. Information for Student Assistants working in an academic library could be included as well.

Support Staff and Supporter of Support Staff Award – committee considered these as two separate awards that could be given out. What needed to be determined in order to be able to present these awards? Some kind of nomination form, perhaps we could use a template? Need a set of specific criteria for someone to qualify for the award. And we need to devise the method and process by which people could be nominated for both awards. Judy Orahood will try to design possible templates that could be used as possible nomination forms, all other committee members are to brainstorm and come up with ideas for possible criteria that could be used for both awards.

Amanda informed us that the next regional consortia meeting was August 19th, she planned on going to the meeting and would talk to the other regionals on our behalf and inform us of the results. The next meeting of the ALAO-SSIG PPC was scheduled to take place on Friday September 13th 2002 at the Southern campus of Southern State Community College with Mary Ayres acting as host for the group. Meeting time to remain from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Note – Don't forget the Appalachian Festival will be on the same date at SSCC ….

Meeting adjourned at 2:57 p.m……